National Lumber's Blog

In everyone’s life, one hopes for a mentor to share wisdom and provide motivation to become our best. The Remodeling Industry was fortunate to have such a man providing leadership on a wide scale, and his influence lives on in ways that some may not even realize.

Excerpts with permission from Shawn McCadden’s blog posting,
In Remembrance of Walt Stoeppelwerth: The Godfather Of Remodeling To Many

Walt Stoeppelwerth

On February 18th, 2013 Walt Stoeppelwerth passed away. Walt was the President of HomeTech Inc in Bethesda, MD for over thirty years. Walt helped shape the Remodeling Industry through his teaching and writing as a columnist with Remodeling magazine. He was a visionary with a unique ability to identify, fully understand and solve existing as well as future challenges within the industry.  He would share his observations, speculate on the likely consequences if the challenges were not addressed, and suggest or predict the solutions he felt would address the challenges. His brilliance was his ability to then create and provide the required solutions, and, through his consulting, direct others who wanted to participate in making the evolution happen. His business model was not reactive to the perceived and often misguided needs expressed by remodelers and industry partners, but rather proactive in creating and providing the solutions and the guidance remodelers and industry partners really needed to improve and foster true success. In summary, Walt had the intimate knowledge, insight, creativity, resources, contacts, relationships and solutions to change the industry and cause tremendous social benefit at the same time. When people feel better about themselves and their businesses, they listen and seek for more of what helped them. Additionally, many then share what they have and know with others with the hopes that they too will benefit.  Walt was a master at setting that example and making it happen for so many remodelers.

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